State Parliament debates additional costs for steel plant construction

The economic situation of Germany’s largest steel producer, Thyssenkrupp Steel, will be discussed in the Düsseldorf state parliament on Thursday. In a current affairs session (10 a.m.) requested by the SPD and AfD, the parliamentarians want to discuss, among other things, possible cost increases in the construction of a steel production plant in Duisburg. Thyssenkrupp Supervisory Board Chairman Siegfried Russwurm spoke at the end of August of “risks of unplanned additional costs.”

The so-called direct reduction plant will initially be operated with natural gas and later with hydrogen. It is expected to produce significantly fewer greenhouse gases than the old steel production in a blast furnace. It is scheduled to go into operation in 2027. According to current calculations, the plant will cost around three billion euros. The federal government will cover around 1.3 billion euros of this, and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia will cover around 700 million euros. This is the largest single grant in the history of the state.

For the SPD office, the question was “whether the state will be willing and able (…) to bear the cost increases of converting steel production in an emergency,” it said in the motion for the current hour.

The state parliament will also deal with a law on municipal heat planning, the protection of cultural assets in the event of a crisis, university access for IT specialists and media skills for children and young people. The CDU, Green, SPD and FDP factions also want to call on the state government in a joint motion to build up relations between Poland and Silesia. The occasion is the 85th anniversary of Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, which marked the beginning of the Second World War.